Asian American Club celebrates cultural diversity

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Asian American Club (AAC) celebrated the start of a new semester and a new year with the Singapore Cultural Event. Taking place on Jan. 31, students and club members alike joined together to learn more about Singapore and take part in its culture.

“Each month, we have usually one culture meeting aimed towards a specific culture group. We do this to spread the culture of different Asian countries,” says junior event coordinator Shamy Shen. “Besides aiming only towards major ethnic groups like China, Japan, and India, we also focus on smaller places like Singapore, Laos, and Malay. Each of these cultural meetings is centered on three aspects: basic information about the country (fun facts, trivia, etc), games and entertainment, and food.”

The country highlighted at the AAC meeting changes each time AAC meets.

“For as long as I can remember, AAC has based the majority of its meetings on specific Asian countries; so the first cultural event may revolve around Vietnam culture whereas the next even may have a Chinese theme,” said senior treasurer Faustine Sun. “We try to mix up the countries a little every year, so we might do a Filipino event one year and replace it the next year with a Malaysian meeting. This year, we decided to add Singapore to the list of featured countries, so we did.”

The Singapore Cultural Event was originally going to take place on Jan. 24, but it was pushed forward to Jan. 31due to the cancellations of school. Yet the preparations for all of the cultural events start weeks prior to the actual event.

“Within the club, we have members sign up for different culture committees. Each committee consists of five to eight people. Then, as a group, the members plan what sort of activities will be at the meeting and divide up the labor,” said Shen. “About 2 weeks before the scheduled club meeting, the officers call together the members of the committee, and we stay after school to plan what needs to be done for the upcoming meeting. Within the committees, the members are in charge of researching their country, organizing games, and cooking/bringing the food.”

One of AAC’s past events and cultural meetings included The Cultural Festival, which occurred on Dec. 13.

“We hope to do more activities that would involve the school and/or community so that we can spread our love of Asian cultures to more and more people,” said Sun. “From now on, we’ll be having an annual school-wide Asian Festival that includes food, games, and trivia, so look out for that next year. Also, we plan to volunteer as a group at Asian-related community events and attend walks to raise awareness for causes such as Alzheimer’s and breast cancer. And of course, we will continue to hold culture events every month.”

Art teacher Laura Menegaez sponsors the AAC meetings, which take place in room 1216. The next meeting, which is not yet scheduled, will concern the Cambodia and Thailand Culture Event.